It's hard to fight when the fight ain't fair,
struggling as you climb the mountain
in an internal uphill battle for something
you never knew what to make of,
lost in the throes of other people's demands
while facing personal demons alone,
people's voices all mingling together
and brushing past your head,
leaving you dazed and isolated
as you can't seem to figure out how to
join in the conversation
and be a part of the flurry of life
happening all around you
because inside you, it never feels like
much is happening,
it's like your capability of perceiving
anything good has been switched off,
like someone violently flicked at it
and beat it in with a hammer
and stomped on it before tossing it into
the back of the memory room, where nothing
is ever remembered or taken back out again
and now when looking through
the lenses of your eyes,
everything is drab and gray, like a discoloring
filter has been applied to make sure you see
things for what they really are,
so that then there's never a chance to
mistake anything for being anything else
that you might have wanted it to be,
so you can remember to always remind yourself
that nothing, and no one, is there for you
and will ever be there for you,
because they are all caught up in the present,
a time when you are utterly insignificant
because one day someone decided to
reach back into the back of your head
and lower your voice and expressions several notches
below silence,
because it was better that way for everyone else's
convenience
they wouldn't have to worry anymore
about hearing your cries of help or anxiousness
of being lost in the throes of other people's decisions
for you
they wouldn't have to hear you
express any doubt or show your real longing
during a time when you were still able to
dream or recall a hazy yet bright idea
of what you wanted to do or study
of the life you might have wanted to make for yourself,
they wouldn't have to take care of you
when you broke down from trying to
dodge expertly concealed insults and recited misfortunes
being hurled at you from all directions
the only kind of pity present in your life
is self-pity and remorse,
self-pity because no one's pity would ever
be enough to accommodate
and remorse because you were never
good enough in the first place
and you know it all too well
and it hurts, that you can't even make things
better for yourself while fighting a fight
that ain't fair
because you don't know how to.